[h2]====================[/h2] [@Lasersquid112] Helmina looked at the rifle with interest. Her own nations have sufficiently advanced weapons, but only energy weapons have any sorts of indicators, and even then the indicators only show power bars. She seemed to be also amazed about the rifle being plugged into a spacesuit. She nodded and let out a big smile, but then she quickly retracted the smile. She reached out to her pocket, pulled out a bar of candies. A faint magikal scent came as she opened the bar of candies. She then took a pink candy out and put it in her mouth, swallowing it in pleasure. As the otherworldly marine began to speak, she and a few other Revitals took out their notepads and began to jot down things. "[color=crimson]Whoah... Your empire must have been great.[/color]" the captain expressed in amazement but also looked at him with some confusion and disbelief. But she then turned to look at the rifle, then nodded slowly. "[color=crimson]Hmmm...[/color]" she continued to listen. "[color=crimson]Hmm... wait... Devourer? Who the fuck was that? Was that some sort of eldritch demon? Sounds fucking tough, even your powerful empire could not deal with it, at least without a hard fight...[/color]" Helmina mumbled as she listened and nodded. She continued to listen, while beginning to ponder about possible answers in her head. And she also wrote some of her doubts and questions inside, too. A seemingly powerful empire of humanity that dominated an entire galaxy. Looking at his futuristic suit and rifle, it seemed quite plausible. But it is also likely just a random futuristic tyranny brainwashing the people. But what is a Devourer? "[color=crimson]Hmmmm... didn't matter... enemy was on board... but missiles dropped...[/color]" a quite puzzled Helmina mumbled. She then took another pink candy and placed it in her mouth. "[color=crimson]Hmmm...[/color]" she smiled a little noticing his sadistic smile, and slightly nodded. But it was somewhat also worrying for her, but she kept her concerns well concealed... The cigar caught her trivial attention, and she quickly jotted down his love for cigars in the notepad. Otherwise, nothing much happened. Somehow it reminded her of her love for her candies. "[color=crimson]Sounds like a cosmic horror very much...[/color]" said as she took a sip of her coffee. "[color=crimson]Either way, it seems you have no choice... wait for death, run to death, or fight to death...[/color]" she remarked, then suddenly a question came in her mind. "[color=crimson]Oh, wait, or did the Devourer offer you guys and gals any sort of deal? No?[/color]" "[color=crimson]An illusion... lovely...[/color]" the lady captain commented as she peered at the hologram with interest. The lady was very moved by the great speech from the hologram. The tale made her smile greatly, but also some tears came out of her eyes. Upon noticing her tears, she looked away for a moment, removed her tears before looking back and mumbled... "[color=crimson]This... reminds me of Lieutenant Adnan... He was a brave hero also, fighting for his homeland despite all odds against him... he was the one saying, 'we will fight till the last drop of our blood'...[/color]" For the most part, she simply nodded and smiled listening to his tale silently. "[color=crimson]'We cannot lose, Marines. We have already won.' Ahhh, what a cool slogan you have here...[/color]" she praised. "[color=crimson]Wow, hundreds of thousands of years...?![/color]" "[color=crimson]Hmm, looks like you care about your gun very much, eh? It must have went through many battles together with you,[/color]" she asked out of the blue. Then she came out with a random comment... "Hmm... final bastion of human hope, but too bad they did not send ladies with you guys too... If not, then those others elsewhere can make love and make babies to pass on their heritage..." she finished her remarks with a chuckle. Then she asked again, "[color=crimson]So how were the foes you were facing? They sounded very tough and powerful even for your futuristic empire. Are they all extra-dimensional beings and cosmic horrors?[/color]" [/quote] He chuckled and shook his head inside of his helmet. Then, he did something unexpected. Reaching back, he took off his helmet completely, then pointed above his eyebrows. Embedded into his skull were eight squares of pure gold. "I served four centuries. Each of those is fifty years. I remember every victory of the Adeptus Royalis in that time. We fought and killed and warred for so, so long, and quite frankly I never got tired of it. Not for a second." He puts his helmet back on, clasping the airtight seal and repressurizing the artificial environment inside. He breathes deeply, preferring the clean air inside the suit over the dirty shit outside of it. "Suit, pull up the last scan of a Devourer taken." The suit whirred for a moment, then a bioscan signature with detailed analysis of a... Creature pulled up. There was simply no other way to describe it. It towered over Helmina, quadrupedal, and charged a group of Marines. They were utterly dwarfed by it - it was easily five times taller than they. The Marines fired, their weapons just streaming death, firing at 30 rounds per second with a 500 magazine round, just like mine. The creature burst into flame but kept running towards them, seeming like the embodiment of death itself. Four of the five Marines broke formation and fled back to where the front now was, but one of them dropped his rifle, charging the thing with his bare hands. The beast revealed a new weapon, four tusk-scythes of pure bone emerging from its face quickly, matted with blood and gore from Marines who had done this very thing. It swiped its head back and forth, but the Marine grabbed onto a tusk, flying along with it. He uses the momentum and leverage to shatter the tusk, a large portion of it coming off in his hands. In one fluid motion, he executes a perfect turn, the tusk burying itself in the creature's eye. He starts working it back and forth, swinging by it, and eventually jumps onto the still-living beast, which was trying to shake him off. He grabs some of its skin, tearing it off, and punches a hole clean through a foot of bone. The creature collapses, the Marine jumps off, grabs his rifle, and follows his comrades. His armor isn't even scratched. "That's me. That's one of the baby Devourers." When Helmina asked about them offering a deal, he actually laughed as if it were some sort of funny joke. "The Devourer didn't know what a 'deal' was. Kill, consume, reproduce. That's all they did. They saw us as inferior and thus tried to kill us off and consume our biomatter so they can go destroy another billion galaxies. Don't doubt for a second that they've killed billions already. Eventually they'll see that life came back here and then we'll be in for another war. Another bout of glory and death and chaos. They had no language other than the language of steel. As for ladies? Our strength isn't genetic. We undergo surgeries to make us beyond human, as you know, since I've lived over four hundred years. And as for my gun?" He picks it up, looking at it with sincere admiration. "This is a C-16 Mutilator. There were many like it, but this one's [i]mine.[/i] Untold thousands have been killed by this weapon, and before the day I die, untold thousands more will, too."